Tom Higgins fired

[Toppy Vann]

Chamblin and Taman got fired.

Right, didn't catch up with the news last night.

Time to swap coaches between Montreal and Saskatchewan?

I had posted a few hours earlier a joke that Chamblin must have photos of the entire upper echelon of their org to keep his job only to get up the next morning here in HK to find it happened that day Canada time.

I was sort of thinking the same thing here. Higgins could be a good fit unless there is something we are missing here. He has some bad luck when it comes to not getting fired. To fire Taman with Chamblin seemed a bit of a strange situation as you now are paying two to not work for you.

Higgins seems to have gone into hiding. Is it possible (conjecture) that the Riders have thought of him for GM or interim GM for THIS season? The Als would then be off the hook for his contract but might not like this as he knows their stuff.

You could bring in Higgins as full GM and interim HC with the proviso a search for that role be done off season or just give him the full meal deal.

[sj-roc]

I didn't see this coming, especially after a big road victory.

Yeah, despite the win it didn't help Higgins keep his job. I don't know what the statistics are but I think it's fair to say that in cases in which a head coach is fired in the middle of the season there's a strong correlation that the last game before the firing was a loss. That's certainly the case in recent history when a Lions head coach was fired in mid-season:

1987: After a strong 8-3 record the team suffered three big losses and Don Matthews was fired.
1989: Starting off the season at 0-4 Larry Donovan was fired.
1990: Standing at 2-3-1, the team lost four in a row and Lary Kuharich was fired.
2002: Starting the season at 0-3 before the first win, then two more losses and Steve Buratto was fired.

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Let's see how long Corey Chamblin will keep his job as head coach of Saskatchewan Roughriders. This happens more often in the NHL but I don't recall this happening in the CFL in which a team fires their current coach for the sake of hiring another coach who suddenly became available. So that said, will the Saskatchewan Roughriders management seriously think about firing Chamblin and hiring Tom Higgins?

On a related note, there are some very detailed stats in the this week's BC @ Mtl game notes on the performance of mid-season replacement coaches in their debuts. On page 5 it mentions that in league history such coaches are collectively 26-31 (.456 win pct) all-time, which is up-to-date through Popp's victory last week. On page 9 there's a full breakdown of all these games dating back to 1956 (n.b. not all of these were due to firings; e.g., in 2000 Greg Mohns resigned to pursue an XFL opportunity and was replaced by Steve Buratto). The Lions co-lead the league with the Argos having 11 mid-season coaching replacements, with the new coaches going a combined 5-6. Ssk has four prior mid-season changes with their new coaches collectively going 3-1. Oddly these notes erroneously list Jeremy O'Day as the new HC whereas all the media reports I've seen (and the Riders' own website) have him as the new GM with incumbent STC Bob Dyce as the HC replacement.

[B.C.FAN]

[The Lions co-lead the league with the Argos having 11 mid-season coaching replacements, with the new coaches going a combined 5-6. Ssk has four prior mid-season changes with their new coaches collectively going 3-1. Oddly these notes erroneously list Jeremy O'Day as the new HC whereas all the media reports I've seen (and the Riders' own website) have him as the new GM with incumbent STC Bob Dyce as the HC replacement.

Leading the league in mid-season coaching changes is not a good stat.

You're correct about O'Day being the GM (on an interim basis until the end of the year). I would consider him the odds-on favourite to be named to the position on a full-time basis.

[sj-roc]

[The Lions co-lead the league with the Argos having 11 mid-season coaching replacements, with the new coaches going a combined 5-6. Ssk has four prior mid-season changes with their new coaches collectively going 3-1. Oddly these notes erroneously list Jeremy O'Day as the new HC whereas all the media reports I've seen (and the Riders' own website) have him as the new GM with incumbent STC Bob Dyce as the HC replacement.

Leading the league in mid-season coaching changes is not a good stat.

You're correct about O'Day being the GM (on an interim basis until the end of the year). I would consider him the odds-on favourite to be named to the position on a full-time basis.

I agree at least as far as when it's a firing; I certainly wasn't trying to convey anything to the contrary with that statement. I only mentioned it in passing as it was noted in the source I quoted.